a devil of a time/job etc

From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englisha devil of a time/job etca devil of a time/job etcold-fashioned spoken a difficult or unpleasant time, job etcWe had a devil of a job trying to get the carpet clean again. →devil

Examples from the Corpus

a devil of a time/job etc• But I've always found the FlyingV and its derivatives a devil of a job to sit down with and play.• If he filled those in they'd have a devil of a joblifting them!• It took me a devil of a time to find it I can tell you.• He was taking a devil of a time to change.